Open primaries no cure-all for dismal turnouts

Some people believe our turnouts would improve if independents could vote in primaries and if Democrats and Republicans could choose whether to switch sides to a more interesting ballot. Many states do it that way.

Muhlenberg College political science professor Christopher Borick told me a few states even hold "blanket primaries," where everyone gets to vote for everything.

These — and my own approach of trying to thwart Pennsylvania's closed primary system by periodically switching voter registration when I see a race I want to vote in — are voter centric. They're designed to maximize voters' choices.

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania is anything but voter centric. Besides the closed primaries, we don't have early voting. We rarely have referenda. Most races are noncompetitive because the districts are so ruthlessly gerrymandered.

Heck, our biggest reform in recent years was designed to make it more difficult to vote in order to solve a nonexistent problem with voter fraud. We were prepared to spend millions on that.

"You go down the list," Borick says, "and we're about as unfriendly to a good voting experience as any state in the country. The way we do it is probably the least engaging possible."

On the bright side, if you want a state that's party centric, we're ideal. That's not all bad, if your goal is to ensure the relative purity, so to speak, of the process by which our major parties choose their nominees.

When all you have to worry about is a few oddballs like me jumping back and forth between parties, you can ensure that real Republicans are choosing Republican candidates and vice versa.

"I can absolutely see the argument of the parties that they want to keep it closed," says Borick. "But that of course serves the party interests and not necessarily the broader interests of voters. They're not always the same."

One of the fears about open or blanket primaries is that leaders will urge their faithful to jump parties in the primaries so their opponents will elect worse candidates, setting them up for failure in the fall.

Borick says there's little evidence that this really happens.

"You'd be asking a lot of voters," he explains. "We have trouble getting people to vote legitimately in races. To think you could gin up enough energy to have them jump across ballots and muddy the waters is probably a reach."

For much the same reason, switching to open primary elections in itself probably wouldn't trigger a huge improvement in turnout. Borick says there is some evidence that open primaries result in small boosts in voter participation, but a broader range of choices is no cure-all.

Look at Lehigh County this spring. Republicans had important decisions to make about the direction of the county executive's office and the commissioners. These choices went beyond the usual county issues into the realm of political ideology, usually not much of a factor in municipal elections.

Did Lehigh Republicans flock to the polls as a result? Hardly. County GOP turnout was about 18 percent, better than the Democrats' 11 percent, but still terrible.

Even if you argue that small increases in voter turnout are worth shooting for, the chances of changing the system in Pennsylvania are remote, for the same reason we haven't overhauled our atrocious redistricting process or adopted other needed reforms.

The two parties call all the shots, and the present system serves them very well, while making it nearly impossible for third parties to get any kind of toehold.

Party centric. That's the way our decision-makers want it.

One of the things I heard from people in the wake of my recent column about dismal turnouts was that the primary election system is designed to serve the two parties and should be eliminated. But Borick points out that primaries grew out of the Progressive Movement as a way to take candidate selection out of back rooms and into the democratic process. That's a good thing.

As for those who want to eliminate all party labels, party affiliation really is helpful in terms of having some clue what this person would do in office, particularly in state and national elections. It's highly unlikely that voters, deprived of those labels, suddenly would begin conducting a lot of independent research.

Is it disconcerting to hear from people, as both Borick and I did, that they tried to vote but were turned away because they're registered independent? Absolutely. Lehigh County Board of Election Chief Clerk Tim Benyo told me they get 30-40 calls like that in every primary.

But I would argue that independents need to weigh their political statement — I don't want to be a part of either of those major parties — against the practical realities.

Borick concludes, "I would advise anybody in Pennsylvania that if they want to have the maximum say in who gets elected to office, register with a party. Not because of love for party, but love for the ability to make choices."